My weekly obsessions

Decided I'd try something new and write down what I've been using/eating a lot of for the week.
This week:

• Pomegranates
• Bay leaves
• Those frosted sugar cookies they have in the bakery section of the grocery store (I know, yuck! But sooo good...)

Wet wipes

I'd like to think of wet wipes as my equivalent to Rick's duck tape or gorilla glue. However sexist it may seem, duck tape really is a man's answer to most quick fixes. The power of wet wipes has become increasingly apparent as Sophia gets older. Not only does it remove banana goo from her hair, the thickest snot from her nose, and the obvious diaper duty...I've found it comes in quite handy as a quick all purpose cleaner. I've also found that the seemingly coolest of all men will take the assistance of an offered wet wipe in their most uncoolest moments.

The other day I was at the grocery store and noticed this man strutting around the store. He looked out of place among your typical mid-morning senior citizens and stay at home moms. As much as I tried to ignore the anomaly, Sophia had this thing with him. She was trying to get his attention and as she was making the effort to gain eye contact, he was making the same effort in ignoring her attempts. The irony of the situation was that we continued to intersect even at his attempts to head in the opposite direction of us. One intersection was the egg rack. As we pulled up, he was grabbing for an egg carton. Any seasoned shopper knows that you approach the egg cartons with caution, knowing that these fragile containers often hold surprises. This guy proved my suspicion that he just isn't a regular grocery shopper by the handling of the eggs. Out of the corner of my eye I noticed a rush of motion as he began to fling what appeared to be raw egg contents from his hand. I quickly dug into my diaper bag, approached him and said, "wet wipe?" Defeated, he gingerly accepted the wipe as if pondering whether it would be better to just wipe the egg on his expensive trousers. I gave a sympathetic look and continued on my way to rescue the world, one act at a time, with wet wipes.

What's for dinner?

Chicken Gumbo
Like most things I make, I wouldn't base the name off a traditional recipe. This one in particular does not use the traditional roux, which I find to be too heavy with the rice. I like it more soupy. I once knew a woman who was from New Orleans and this is how she made her gumbo, and although it was many years ago, I still remember it being the best "chicken soup" I ever had. So here's my rendition.

Coat bottom of heavy stock pot with 2 tablespoons of vegetable oil and set stove top to medium high heat. I used 1/2 of a fryer chicken, so 1 leg, thigh, breast, wing and seasoned with salt and pepper. Add to pot and brown on all sides. While browning, chop up 1 and 1/2 large onion, 3 medium stalks of celery and 3 large onions to bite sized portions. Add to pot with the chicken and let saute until slightly soft. While this is being sauteed, add 1 heaping tablespoon of Old Bay seasoning, 2 teaspoons of whole leaf dried thyme, 1 teaspoon of whole leaf oregano, and 2 teaspoons of cracked pepper. Once veggies are slightly soft, add water until it completely but just barely covers the chicken. Bring to a boil. Once to a boil, place a lid over the pot and bring temperature down to low and simmer for 2 hours.
After 2 hours, remove chicken from pot and set aside to cool. At this point, I skim off the excess fat. Continue to simmer the broth. Now you will add some smoked sausage. I use cooked linguica but you can also use the traditional cooked andouille sausage. Remove the casing and cut in half and then into bite size pieces. Add to the pot. Once the chicken is cooled enough to touch, take off the skin and shred from the bone. Add to pot. Add 1/2 cup of chopped fresh parsley. Simmer all together for another 1 and 1/2 hours.
In the last half hour, cook some rice. Once again, I swayed from tradition and used basmati rice, with the zest of one lemon added to the salty water. I think the lemon adds a clean flavor to the finished dish. It's up to you.
Scoop out some rice, and ladle your gumbo over. Top with sliced green onions and serve with hot sauce.

Another pumpkin patch

I might have mentioned in the past that I love this time of year. It's gotten better since Sophia's been around. Not only do I get to enjoy the season through her eyes, I have a scapegoat to blame my excitement for. We visited the Peter pumpkin patch, which is also a working farm. They had lots of things to do, but here are the highlights:

Eating dirt. Well, not really. We actually dug up some Yukon Gold potatoes. Sophia ate dirt.

Feeding the calf. I'm always amazed at how fearless Sophia is around livestock. It makes my heart stop when she jams her hand into the fence with whatever morsel she deems acceptable for the animal to eat. So far the animals have been on their best behavior. I fear for the day they aren't. Sophia was very fond of this calf. A few tears were shed when we had to say goodbye.

And best of all, spending a beautiful day with close friends.

Pumpkin Patch

October 12 on the 12th

Monday the 12th was the day before we were supposed to get a huge amount of rain from the remains of the typhoon in East Asia. So in light of all that, I really wanted to get some errands done and make sure Sophia had a good run at the park. That was first on our agenda. Sophia isn't that patient with errands these days. I never know if she's going to throw a fit in the store, so I run around like a mad woman. The goal was to get a car seat for Rick's truck (to give him more opportunity to take Sophia on outings), use up all the coupons I got for diaper wipes and bath soaps, and the big purchase was the potty for training.

Before you think to yourself that I'm nuts for starting this early, I'm really not even close to starting her on the training. But I thought I'd start introducing her to the concept of sitting on the potty and maybe she'd begin to get interested. She's in major denial about her poops, so I feel this is going to be a long road anyway. I always ask, while she's pooping, if she has to poop. She starts out with a straight faced "no" followed by a more whiny "NOooooo" which is followed by an adamant head shake side to side. Anyway, back to the potty later.

One of Rick's clients has an apple tree which must produce record amounts of apples, because we've gotten 2 full boxes, and I know she must have other takers besides us. The first box was much appreciated. Sophia loves apples, Rick loves apples, I don't mind making apple stuff. I finally got down to feeling like I was making a dent in the box when Rick came home with another full box and a look of guilt on his face. Well, it wasn't a full box this time, because he had dropped off half the contents at his parents, because I think he knew how overwhelmed I'd be at tackling another box. Anyway, we have apples coming out of our ears over here. An apple a day, huh?

So then it seemed as if the day flew by and I didn't have time to snap pictures much during the middle of the day, and forgot about taking any until after dinner. So here's the after dinner chaos, taken as I was shuffling Sophia to her bath. No bath is complete without brushing the teeth before and after the bath. I think she's so infatuated with brushing her teeth purely for the tooth paste. I'm not complaining (really). So after the bath, she decided the new toilet needed a little plumbing, with the lint remover. Go figure.

Back to the subject of the potty, sort of. We like to introduce things really early around here. Take her "big girl" bed for example. I am in no rush of moving Sophia into a big girl bed. However, our friends were getting a new bed for their teenager and we couldn't pass up the fortune of this really cool trundle bed. So until I'm ready to move Sophia into it, Molly is making sure she gets the pillow nice and broken in for Sophia. Speaking of pillows, I put a pillow in her crib the other night, and she loves that thing! Makes bedtime even easier. Night-night.

18 months old

Sophia is a year and a half today! At her 18 month check-up, she weighed 27.5 pounds and was 32.5 inches in length. She is in the 90% across the board.

Life's a Beach

Sophia's first time at the beach! This girl is fearless. She ran straight toward to the water with no hesitation. It was all we could do to keep distracting her with things to play with in the sand.